Toxic Shock

WOMEN WILL be able to reduce their risk of toxic shock syndrome when tampon makers begin complying with a new government regulation, health officials say. Within four months, all tampon makers will have to use the terms ''junior,'' ''regular,'' ''super'' or ''super plus'' to describe the absorbency of their products. Each term denotes a specified range of absorbency, and manufacturers will be required to include an explanation of the ranges and how women can use the information. The labels will allow women to compare brands and choose lower-absorbency products, the Food and Drug Administration says.

There's nothing dangerous about Toxic Audio, the ominously named a cappella vocal group in residence for the next couple of weeks on Civic Theatre of Central Florida's Second Stage. Nothing, that is, unless you find it frightening to feel so transported by a bunch of songs that you leave the theater with the intense desire to make as much noise as you can. These five singers have energy, no doubt about it. What they also have is creativity and a smooth, highly polished sound. Toxic Audio is already a local favorite, at least among those in the know, from its appearances at the Orlando International Fringe Festival in 1998 and 1999.

Toxic shock syndrome, the disease associated with superabsorbent tampons such as the discontinued Rely brand, has fallen sharply during the past decade, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says. Toxic shock was first recognized in May 1980 when women began reporting symptoms of high fever, rash and low blood pressure. Thirty-eight women died of toxic shock in 1980. By 1989 only 61 cases were reported, compared with 890 in 1980, the CDC said. The agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report noted that tampon packages now advise women to use the least absorbent tampon practical.

It came on suddenly - fever, diarrhea, swollen red hands.''I couldn't even get out of bed,'' says Leslie Hudson, 33. ''By the third day, I was opening a brand new package of tampons and I took the toxic shock warning out and I read it.''Her symptoms matched those on the brochure. She called her doctor, went to the emergency room and was hospitalized for four days.Toxic shock syndrome made headlines in the early 1980s, when scores of women around the country died from the sudden illness. Most of those deaths were attributed to tampon use, with one brand - Rely - taken off the market.

Researchers warned Thursday that some surgeons may unwittingly infect patients with toxic shock syndrome, saying they recently confirmed that a Minnesota surgeon spread the disease to two of his patients.Although such a case had not been reported previously, the scientists said about 200 cases of post-operative toxic shock have been reported over the past few years and said hospital doctors and nurses may be to blame.''The bacteria are transmitted from person to person . . . this particular doctor carried it in his nose,'' said Dr. Richard Novick, director of the Public Health Research Institute, a non-profit health research facility in New York City.

Toxic shock syndrome, a life-threatening illness that has been linked to the use of tampons and contraceptive sponges, also appears to be a rare complication of the flu, government scientists said Thursday.Researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control have documented nine cases of toxic shock associated with an influenza outbreak in Minnesota last winter. They said the finding may explain many deaths that occurred during previous epidemics, including the legendary plague of Athens.

Tambrands Inc., the manufacturer of Tampax tampons, has announced a change in the way it makes its Super Plus line and offered to send replacements to consumers who still have the old kind.The company said it had removed polyacrylate, an absorbent fiber, from the tampons because it had been shown to increase the risk of toxic shock syndrome under some conditions. The material was removed from Super Plus, the only line that contained polyacrylate, in February and was replaced with a blend of cotton and rayon.

There's nothing dangerous about Toxic Audio, the ominously named a cappella vocal group in residence for the next couple of weeks on Civic Theatre of Central Florida's Second Stage. Nothing, that is, unless you find it frightening to feel so transported by a bunch of songs that you leave the theater with the intense desire to make as much noise as you can. These five singers have energy, no doubt about it. What they also have is creativity and a smooth, highly polished sound. Toxic Audio is already a local favorite, at least among those in the know, from its appearances at the Orlando International Fringe Festival in 1998 and 1999.

TOXIC SHOCK DAMAGES. A Circuit Court jury has found a tampon maker responsible for a woman's death from toxic shock syndrome in 1978 and has ordered it to pay her family $905,750. The jury deliberated 11 hours over two days before deciding on Friday that Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Inc., maker of O.B. Tampons, was responsible for the death of Donna Marie Davis of Decatur. Davis, 31, died after suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, fever and a rash. All are symptoms of toxic shock syndrome.

A RESEARCHER has concluded that the plague that led to the downfall of ancient Athens was caused by a combination of influenza and toxic shock syndrome. The plague of Athens, 430-427 B.C., was perhaps the most disastrous and fateful epidemic of recorded ancient history, killing tens of thousands of Athenians. In a new analysis, Dr. Alexander Langmuir, retired chief of epidemiology at the federal Centers for Disease Control, said the plague ''fits all the criteria, epidemiologically and clinically, for influenza complicated by toxic shock syndrome.

Its Betty Napiers favorite gas mask, with a sporty look and a vivid purple and yellow color scheme. Still, its a mask. When she slips it on to go shopping, guards take her for a security risk and other shoppers veer away, assuming she has some exotic disease. Exotic. If only they knew. Its not the exotic that dogs her, its the commonplace: women in makeup, men wearing after-shave, suburban lawns, heavy traffic, wall-to-wall carpets, the perfume counter, the electronics section, the bug spray aisle.

These are some things you can do with an orange: Peel it and eat it, juice it and drink it, cook it in a sauce and serve it over roast duck.Here is one thing Dr. Doyle Chastain can do: Extract a substance to kill infectious bacteria.Chastain, a Titusville internal medicine specialist, and a team of collaborators at Creighton University in Omaha are using a compound found in the peel of citrus fruit to destroy a range of bacteria.The substance has been found effective against the microbes that cause dental plaque, strep throat, toxic shock syndrome and Legionnaire's disease.

An 11-year-old Winter Springs girl has lost her left leg, three toes and the heel of her right foot to deadly flesh-eating bacteria.Doctors say Dawn Nelkorn, hospitalized since March at Florida Hospital Orlando, is the victim of a streptococcus-A infection, a type of organism that has mutated dramatically throughout the century, producing different diseases with each change.''Cases like the one involving this little girl are very startling, and it's understandable why people get upset about it,'' state epidemiologist Dr. Richard Hopkins said Thursday.

Toxic shock syndrome, the disease associated with superabsorbent tampons such as the discontinued Rely brand, has fallen sharply during the past decade, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says. Toxic shock was first recognized in May 1980 when women began reporting symptoms of high fever, rash and low blood pressure. Thirty-eight women died of toxic shock in 1980. By 1989 only 61 cases were reported, compared with 890 in 1980, the CDC said. The agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report noted that tampon packages now advise women to use the least absorbent tampon practical.

TOXIC SHOCK DAMAGES. A Circuit Court jury has found a tampon maker responsible for a woman's death from toxic shock syndrome in 1978 and has ordered it to pay her family $905,750. The jury deliberated 11 hours over two days before deciding on Friday that Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Inc., maker of O.B. Tampons, was responsible for the death of Donna Marie Davis of Decatur. Davis, 31, died after suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, fever and a rash. All are symptoms of toxic shock syndrome.

Toxic shock syndrome, a life-threatening illness that has been linked to the use of tampons and contraceptive sponges, also appears to be a rare complication of the flu, government scientists said Thursday.Researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control have documented nine cases of toxic shock associated with an influenza outbreak in Minnesota last winter. They said the finding may explain many deaths that occurred during previous epidemics, including the legendary plague of Athens.

It came on suddenly - fever, diarrhea, swollen red hands.''I couldn't even get out of bed,'' says Leslie Hudson, 33. ''By the third day, I was opening a brand new package of tampons and I took the toxic shock warning out and I read it.''Her symptoms matched those on the brochure. She called her doctor, went to the emergency room and was hospitalized for four days.Toxic shock syndrome made headlines in the early 1980s, when scores of women around the country died from the sudden illness. Most of those deaths were attributed to tampon use, with one brand - Rely - taken off the market.

Remember toxic shock syndrome? Legionnaires disease? Herpes? Crack?If you think toxic shock syndrome went away when Procter & Gamble took its high-absorbency Rely tampon off the market, you are wrong.The incidence of toxic shock ''hasn't dropped at all,'' said Dr. Michael Osterholm, state epidemiologist for the Minnesota Department of Health, which has been tracking the outbreak since it first showed up in 1979. What has declined is attention to the issue in the media and the public, and as a result fewer cases have been reported in the past five years.